Themes repeat –

again, the violin – which I resist, again:
I disinter it from its case again –
to practice Brahms and Bach and Beethoven

preparatory to rehearsing in an orchestra for yet
another concert – the prospect of performing which
I constitutionally seem again prepared to hate.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that every string
has loosened to the wan flaccidity
that every man has nightmares is his phallic fate.

Patiently, I tune it up: slowly it resumes
at least the simulacra of its function –
then the A string snaps. And I pretend

(swallowing my bitterness) I’m tender as a mother
while I passively-aggressively extract its silver ends
and thread the new string in –

and slowly bend
and coil it –
and twist

and twist
and twist the peg –
and tune it up

and tune it up again
and tune it up again
(repeat by powers of ten)

and here I am again again again
resisting the poor wooden creature in my lap,
hoping that another of its strings won’t snap –

or hoping that it will. Why does this always make me ill?
“Use your music,” said my mother just before she died.
It’s like she got inside and pried.

.